Business Management, Ethics and Entrepreneurship

What are the Concept and Features of Organization?

Concept of Organization

Organization in a formal sense refers to a collective group of persons engaged in pursuing specified objectives. Behavioral scientists and sociologists view Organisation as comprising human relationships in a group activity. It is referred to as the social system encompassing all formal relations. Another way of looking at Organisation is to consider it as an essential function of management. In an operational sense, Organisation can be considered as consisting of divisions of work among people and coordination of their activities towards some common objectives.

The important steps in organizing are:
(i) Identification and classification of activities of the enterprise consistent with its objectives.
(ii) Grouping those activities into workable units or departments.
(iii) Delegation of authority and placing of responsibility on the executives of the departments for carrying out the assigned activities.
(iv) Establishing superior-subordinate relationships within the departments.
(v) Making provision for effective coordination between them and establishment of definite lines of supervision.

The following are the main features of organizing:
(i) It is a subprocess of management
(ii) It is goal-oriented. It is designed on the basis of objectives and it aims at achieving them.
(iii) It deals with group efforts.
(iv) It is based on the principle of division of work.
(v) It establishes the authority-responsibility relationship among the organizational members.

The organizing process leads to the creation of an organizational structure, which defines how tasks are divided and resources deployed. Organizational structure is defined as
1. The set of formals tasks assigned to individuals and departments
2. Formal reporting relationships including lines of authority, decision responsibility, number of hierarchical levels, and span of managers control and
3. The design of systems to ensure effective coordination of employees across departments.

Features of Organization

1. Work specialization

Work Specialization is the degree to which tasks in an organization are divided into separate jobs. In some companies or organizations, this is also referred to as the division of labor. Work specialization is something that helps companies become more efficient, and productive. It is always important for a company’s productivity to go up and or stay stable. An example of where work specialization may be used to help productivity and efficiency would possibly be in a shop, or an assembly line setting. One of the first businessmen to implement this idea of work specialization in a blue-collar fashion was Henry Ford. He believed the assembly line was beneficial to his company and indeed it was. The assembly line focused on workers only performing one specific task and passing it to the next person. It was well-organized, fast, and efficient, something that the auto industry needed to implement in order to be successful, and Ford did just that.

2. Chain of Command

In an organizational structure, “chain of command” refers to a company’s hierarchy of reporting relationships — from the bottom to the top of an organization, who must answer to whom. The chain of command not only establishes accountability but also lays out a company’s lines of authority and decision-making power. A proper chain of command ensures that every task, job position, and department has one person assuming responsibility for
performance.

About the author

Shreya Kushwaha

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